Citi Celebrates “Teach Children to Save Day” as Hundreds of Employees
Across The U.S. Volunteer to Promote Financial Literacy

New Citi Survey Reveals Methods Parents Use to Teach their Children
about Money and How Parents Handle Allowances and Money Topics

Parents Say they are Doing a Better Job Teaching their Kids about
Money than their Own Parents Did, but Nearly 30% Believe their Children
Have a Fair or Poor Understanding of Money and Saving

April 09, 2014 10:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--More than 500Citi Consumer Banking employees across the United
States will volunteer in classrooms, after-school programs and Citibank
branches over the next several weeks as part of Citi’s Teach Children to
Save campaign and in support of the American Bankers Association’s
“Teach Children to Save Day” on April 11, 2014. The initiatives are
designed to teach children in grades K – 12 about the importance of
saving for the future and healthy money habits, such as understanding
needs versus wants and spending money wisely. In the 14 years Citi
Community Development has supported Teach Children to Save Day, Citi
employees have reached 105,000 students.

Citi’s 2014 effort will kick off today with a teaching event for first
and second grade students of Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School
in the Bronx led by Citi U.S. Consumer & Commercial Banking President
Cece Stewart, New York City Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy
Initiatives Richard Buery, Children’s Aid Society Interim President and
CEO Dr. William Weisberg and NFL star Justin Tuck. In all, Citi
employees will teach more than 9,000 students at nearly 100 teaching
events in cities across the country, including Baltimore, Boston,
Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San
Francisco and Washington, DC. In New York, Citi has teamed up with New
York Cares, a nonprofit with a mission to meet pressing community needs
by mobilizing volunteers, which has helped create nearly 30 events in
New York that will impact 1,800 students.

“Through Teach Children to Save and related year-round initiatives, we
aim to provide our nation’s young people with the critical knowledge and
skills they need to understand the importance of saving for the future
and to begin building financial assets,” said Bob Annibale, Global
Director of Citi Community Development and Microfinance. “We are proud
to mobilize our people and deploy our resources to help ensure that the
country’s next generation will enter adolescence and adulthood with a
solid understanding of financial concepts and how savings can help
enable long-term goals, particularly higher education.”

“Citi has been a terrific long-time sponsor of this campaign,” said
Frank Keating, American Bankers Association President and CEO. “Through
their partnerships with local nonprofits, they really know how to engage
the community to make an even bigger impact.”

“Citi has proactively identified the need for sound saving habits,
researched methods for addressing it, and is deploying hundreds of
finance professionals to get children started out on the right foot,”
said Gary Bagley, Executive Director of New York Cares. “We are grateful
for Citi’s commitment and we feel that this campaign will have an
extremely positive and long-lasting impact, with volunteers preparing
students for success now and in the future.”

Survey of 1,500 Parents on Teaching Children the Value of Money

In conjunction with Citi’s support of National Teach Children to Save
Day, Citi today released findings from a national survey of over 1,500
parents, exploring the way parents are teaching their children about the
value of money. The survey found that the majority of parents view
themselves as the primary source of financial education for their kids,
with parents reporting that their kids learn about money by watching
them (70 percent) and talking about money together (59 percent).

When asked to evaluate how they are doing when it comes to modeling
sound financial behavior, today’s parents feel that they are setting a
better example for their kids than their own parents did. Still, 29
percent say their children have only a fair or poor understanding of
money and saving.

Parents are taking a proactive role in the financial education of their
children, with nearly 9 out of 10 parents already teaching their
children about money. Top parent-child financial education activities
include:

Six out of ten parents give their kids an allowance and most leave
financial decisions about how to spend allowance money to their
children. Letting children decide for themselves how to spend their cash
has its advantages; 83 percent of parents report that children value
their autonomous purchases more than items purchased by their parents.

Allowance Basics

When to start? The average age parents begin giving an
allowance is 8.5 years old.

How much? Nearly 40 percent of parents give $5 - $10 a week.
Yet, another 21 percent of parents give their kids more than $15/week.

Chores or no chores? Most parents tie an allowance to chores
(69 percent) or good behavior (21 percent).

West Coast more generous with allowance: The average allowance
per child varies by region, with the western states ($11.12) likely to
give more than the national average ($10.53); and parents in the
Midwest ($10.09) and Northeast ($10.04) likely to give less.

Who to ask, mom or dad? Dads are likely to give more allowance
than moms ($11.53 vs. $9.44).

Parents Uncertain about Their Children’s Future

While parents are committed to positive financial role modeling, more
than half of parents surveyed (56 percent) are not confident that life
for their children’s generation will necessarily be better than it has
been for their generation. Parents expect that their children will
struggle with a number of different financial concerns as adults,
including:

71 percent think that saving for a home will be a major concern.

71 percent think they’ll struggle to have enough money for major
expenses like a car or education.

69 percent think their children will be concerned about having enough
money for emergencies.

69 percent of parents think they will, in turn, worry about their own
children’s financial future.

“The economic climate has not only impacted parents’ immediate financial
concerns, but also how they think about, and prepare for, their
children’s financial future,” said Linda Descano, CFA®, Head of Content
and Social for Citi North America Marketing, and President and CEO of
Citi’s Women
& Co. “It’s encouraging that parents are taking matters in their
own hands to cultivate the next generation of money-savvy, financially
stable Americans.”

Not All Money Topics Are On the Table

While parents are open to talking to kids about money and using it as a
teaching tool, some topics are still taboo. Nearly half of parents feel
that there are still off-limits topics, including:

The amount of money they make (28 percent)

The amount of savings they have (27 percent)

The amount of debt they have (26 percent)

The value of their home (13 percent)

The cost of their children’s school tuition (10 percent).

For tips on how to teach children about money and saving, visit Women
& Co., Citi’s personal finance resource for women.

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online during March 13-17, 2014, with 1504
adults in the United States. Invitations to the survey were sent to a
representative sample of adult men and women drawn from the YouGov
panel. To qualify for the survey, potential respondents had to have at
least one child between the ages of 5 and 18 living at home and have
some responsibility for selecting their household’s financial products.
Quotas were set to ensure sufficient numbers of parents with children in
the K-8 ages and with children in high school ages for analyzing each
group. The margin of error is +/- 2.5%.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer
accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions.
Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with
a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer
banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities
brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.